1) Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for producing a chip card, which has a multi-layer plastic card body, an integrated circuit arranged in a chip module and at least two further electronic components, which are connected to one another and/or to the chip module by strip conductors arranged on a carrier layer and metallic contact surfaces connected to the strip conductors, and also relates to a chip card produced by the generic method.
2) Description of the Related Art
Chip cards are being used to an increasing extent in the form of phone cards, access authorization cards, bank cards etc. In the case of these cards, the energy supply and data exchange of the card with external equipment takes place in a direct way via physical contact or in an inductive way by a coil embedded in the card. In the case of cards of this type, only a connection between the chip module and the coil embedded in the card body has to be established in the course of the production process.
Apart from these cards of a relatively simple construction, the increased possibilities for using chip cards are leading also to the design of chip cards which have further electronic components, such as for example a keypad and a display, and are referred to as interactive chip cards. The additional components may have different overall heights, on account of which the connection between the keypad, display and integrated circuit within the chip card has to be brought about in a relatively complicated way.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to develop further the generic method for producing a chip card and a chip card produced by the method in such a way that it is also possible to produce interactive chip cards in a simple way, and consequently at particularly low cost.